It weighed roughly 4,500 pounds and could haul 4 tons. The more modern coal hopper would appear around 1850 it featured four axles (which rode on an early truck system), was 11 feet 6 inches, 5 feet 3 inches wide, 40 inches deep, and carried a wheelbase of 9 feet 6 inches. It weighed 2,240 pounds and could haul about 2 tons. The car was 7 feet in length, 5 feet 3 inches wide, 40 inches deep, and had a wheelbase of just 4 feet. notes the earliest hoppers were those mentioned above and unloaded their coal by a lever which released a chute at the bottom. In his book, " The American Railroad Freight Car," author John White, Jr. Still, as Mike Schafer notes in his book, " Freight Train Cars," the hopper was essentially a fancy version of a gondola.īy 1840 the car had improved to include a pair of two-axle trucks for heavier loads and a better chute design for increased unloading.Īs a result this version is often credited as being the original hopper car. The little jimmies carried the basic features of the modern-day hopper which differentiates its from the gondola. Notable here are the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (via its Mauch Chunk & Summit Hill Railroad) and the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company. The original hoppers, as noted in more detail below, were essentially what is described as "jimmies," a little two-axle cars used on pioneering tram and mule-powered railroads of the 1820's and 1830's to haul about 1.5 tons of coal (3,000 pounds) from mines to a nearby canal or river.
Instead, they feature some type of angled or sloped chutes or hatches, which use the force of gravity to quickly unload their cargo and never requiring being tilted or turned upside-down in any way. Whereas gondolas can look just like hoppers, right down to their size, length, commodity, and even a basic form of drop-bottom as well (which discharges material straight down) hoppers do not. You may then be asking, " What in the heck is the difference between gondolas and hoppers?" The drop-bottoms are basically what separate the two types. Today, the open-top version of these cars haul everything from coal to aggregates, such as ballast (a term which refers to the crushed rock used under the railroad tracks that acts as support and cushioning), and feature a number of different drop-bottom designs to empty their cargo.
The modern open-top hopper car is a bit more sophisticated than what they might appear.
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